Revolting placards

Having some fun at the expense of rioting students, Oli Holden-Rea has come up with the top ten placards for revolting students:

"If you’re going to spend your afternoon protesting, then you’ll want to make sure you draw attention to your cause – or at least appear on TV. Total Politics offers a run-down of some of the more creative ways students have put their education to good use in 'the top ten placards from the tuition fee protests':


1. I thought I was going to Alton Towers
2. I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policy
3. This s**t wouldn’t happen at Hogwarts
4. Hairdressing student against cuts
5. Kiss my arts
6. If I could afford higher tuition fees I’d buy a better banner
7. I went to university and all I could aford [sic] was this stupid sign
8. Is this the queue for Justin Bieber tickets?
9. Arts cuts are worse than this comic sans font
10. Angry Sign

Nick Clegg at PMQ's

"Clegg retains the impossibly high moral tone he favored (on many subjects) during his years in opposition. Adhering to a logic that mortals struggle to grasp, with great impatience he insists (as though explaining it to children) that the new policy is somehow in keeping with the old. When it isn’t. It is difficult to see this approach having widespread appeal." writes Iain Martin about today's PMQ's performance from Nick Clegg.

I think he's about right on tone, but utterly wrong on policy.

The LibDems did not win the election. Their manifesto promises cannot therefore be implemented. Indeed the British people did not vote for them to be implemented.

Coalition government is about compromise and agreement. Not lofty ideological principles that are unbreakable. No matter what pledges were signed before the election, the LibDems lost the right to stick to them the moment the electorate voted for a hung parliament.

For Labour to suggest that the LibDems now have no principles is seriously disingenuous - indeed downright dishonest. It is also why a coalition with Labour was never possible. And I thought it was all about numbers...

Tom Chivers on Ashtiani & Islam

"Only the other day, five Anglican bishops decided that the particular flavour of Christian God they were following wasn’t nasty enough to gays and women, so they swapped for a different one. To my knowledge none of them were martyred in a public square in Oxford, and I think we can all say hurrah for that. They might not have been so lucky during the Reformation. This isn’t because the Bible has changed, it’s because Christians have – for the better, by and large." Writes Tom Chivers in Telegraph blogs in a piece about Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani facing stoning for adultery and the true face of Islam. well worth reading.

Sunshine wins the day: Birbalsingh v Millar

Fiona Millar wrote in yesterday's Guardian “I have seen several Katharine Birbalsinghs come and go. They emerge from nowhere; catch the media’s attention, often because of the way they look. Would she have made the same impact if she had been white and middle aged? Around 1 per cent of what they say is true; the rest is usually eye-catching propaganda that plays into the prejudices of the audience. In my experience these characters usually inhale too much of their own publicity, get over-promoted and vanish as quickly as they appeared.”

Not only is this really dismissive, patronising drivel on a very personal level - something we have come to expect from the nasty party - but it does absolutely nothing to advance her argument that everything in state education is wonderful. From someone who argues in favour of 'bog standard comprehensives' it just shows that even non-white, non middle-aged teachers with years of real experience in classrooms recognise the serious problems that consign each generation to a lack of opportunity, aspiration and ultimately promote poverty.

"I used to stand up at assembly all the time and say: “Be like Martin Luther King. Be like Nelson Mandela.” How then could I, when facing the music, not try to do the right thing? I may be unemployed, but at least I know that if ever I get the chance to stand at assembly again, I can hold my head up high" answers Katharine Birbalsingh. Wonderful. The argument has already been won. Even St. Barack knows the value of real education. He just calls them Charter schools.

Progressive fees

I didn't quite see who the questioner was at PMQ's (Paul Uppal? according to my Twitter feed) but a graduate earning £25,000 would pay just £30 per month in repaying student fees under the Coalition's proposals. That really is extraordinarily progressive, putting enormous emphasis on higher earning graduates to repay the most substantial rates.

I had not realised just how progressive these measures were designed to be.

Labour's shame

The nasty party is now telling us that if you're a North West Labour MP, a member of the GMB union or a regular networker in the strangers bar at the house of commons, it's ok to lie and smear an opponent in order to win office.

It is never acceptable to be dishonest or racist. What a long way the party has fallen. What shame.

Let's hope that until the Labour party is honest and decent, the electorate keep it a long way from office.

Woolas should go immediately.

The wisdom of Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson talking about Conservatism, from a piece suggesting David Cameron is just too nice for his own good. What irony?


'People offer various definitions of right and left. Mine is that to be Conservative is to declare faith not in dogma, but in mankind. To have faith in the wisdom and genius of the British public, and believe that the best route to success is to em

power the many. The 'Big Society' idea - a powerful agenda, disguised by a criminally stupid name.


To be Labour is to be angry, angry about society: leftism starts with a list of Bad People who are to be kept in check. The Old Labour way is to believe that Britain is best if power (and about half the money people earn) is placed with an enlightened elite.

Conservatives want to take power away from government, and give it to the people, whom they trust.'

Rebel Coalition

Interesting graph from the New Statesman blog recording government rebellions in each post war parliament.

The 2010'ers certainly look like a rebel Coalition to me.

The Eton walk

Last weekend I managed a spectacular walk through the New England colours of Windsor Great Park. But what a difference a week makes. Today the leaves have fallen, the branches are largely bare.

Today I took the Thames path from Datchet, across the home park, via what we call the rabbit field to Tom Jones boatyard where elegant slipper launches and steam-driven day boats are beautifully restored. Then up past Romney lock to Windsor bridge and a well deserved cappuccino.

We return to Datchet down Eton high street, across the playing fields and via the 6th fairway running down beside the Thames relief channel. We call it the Eton walk and have used it every Christmas afternoon I can remember.

The picture is Syd Barrett - a founding member of Pink Floyd and one of the greatest casualties of the sixties - about whom I was thinking as I walked. But that's another story.

St Barack may not be doomed

St. Barack is doomed - enter Mrs Clinton writes Simon Heffer.

I agree with his analysis that President Obama blaming the economy - and by inference the electorate for not seeing it - is correct.

But that's a long way from electing Hilary Clinton as the next president. Apart from anything else, she proved incredibly devisive in the last presidential race.

The Politeratti don't want photographs

Big story of the day for our Politeratti? Cameron employs personal photographer at number 10 using public funds. Oh dear.

So its OK to have diary secretaries, PR consultants, gatekeepers, speech-writers, media specialists and political advisers? But not a photographer. So no pictures then? No pictures for the constant stream of charities and third sector organisations visiting Downing Street who give back so much in building the 'big society'? No pictures for foreign ambassadors, emissaries, dignitaries and heads of state? No official photographic record of important moments inside number 10?

No real thought then for the little people as we watch - sans images - what goes on in our name at the heart of this administration. I think it was one of the Kennedy's who observed that a man's character was shown by how they looked after those people that they did not need...

Julian Glover on coalition government

Interesting piece in today's Guardian from Julian Glover who is a great supporter of the coalition...

Turn Labour's hate on itself. No one expects the opposition to approve of doing deals with Tories. But the majority of voters understand why it happened. Labour has misjudged the tone. Sneering at Clegg's party will not destroy it. Labour comes over as angry and isolated. Every time a Labour MP calls for the Lib Dems to be destroyed, Clegg's decision to join forces with the Tories in the national interest appears more legitimate.

This is coalition government

This really is copybook coalition politics. No fuss. No bother. No external briefings. Just a comprehensive and convincing restructuring of higher education funding to put British students and universities on a global footing.

Vince Cable and David Willetts have delivered - and way beyond the coalition agreement hammered out in May. They have done so with civility and in the face of deeply partisan criticism from the Labour benches whose thirteen years of government were characterised by the near destruction of university funding based on dumbed-down qualifications attached to absurdly optimistic projections for participation and without the necessary funding.

Now we have widely agreed, evidence-based, bottom-up policy that will stand the test of time. Putting students at the heart of higher education and British universities at the forefront of global educational standards. Anyone who cares about higher education should celebrate the coalition tonight.

No progress at PMQ's

The Labour party is now so far from principle that even when faced with their own policy, they oppose it, says Cameron in a memorable line from today's PMQ's.

He went on to quote from the Labour manifesto - written by one Ed Miliband just a few short months ago - on proposed changes to housing benefit. It showed that Labour themselves wanted changes - including a cap - so that the unfairness of poorer people paying through their taxes for housing benefits on property they could only dream of was rightly stopped.

Progressive? Fair? Social Justice? Once again Ed Miliband finds himself on the wrong side of the argument.

Remembrance

Really nice service at St. Mary's church last night to commemorate villagers who have died over the last few years. A surprisingly large number. Names were read, candles lit, surmon & choir heard, but every person there held grief so private, the service felt almost too intrusive. My mother quietly wept, embarrassed that the passage of time has healed nothing. I don't know if it ever will.

Afterwards we went to the Stag, our spirits lifted by the weekly quiz. And if I'm honest the Pinot Grigio.

 

The Beatles White Album

I listened to the Beatles White album for the first time at the weekend. A rare dose of intuitive Beatle lyrics, harmonies and just sheer joy at being in front of a microphone. Amazing how free-form the songs are - almost like a stream of possibilities knitted together haphazardly into an album. A double one at that.

The lyrics themselves are absurd: 'I told you 'bout Strawberry Fields, You know the place where nothing is real', 'Mother superior jump the gun' or 'Honey Pie, I love you' - the only two lines in Wild Honey Pie. Well known are Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Revolution & Back In The USSR, but John Lennon's Piggies, McCartney's melodic Blackbird and well finished Julia are all memorable.

Bored of your current ipod playlists? Download it.

Joe Hargan's butterflies

I saw this picture through the window of a contemporary art gallery in Eton recently. Fish, butterflies, apples? And is that Mohatma Gandhi on the left? Its by an artist called Joe Hargan and costs many thousands of pounds.

The language of politics

'Politics needs insults – they keep democracy afloat' writes Jackie Ashley in today's Guardian. She totally misses the point. Politics is about verbal argument, both oral and written. It thrives on  'reasonable conclusions based on supported facts' as the anti-tea campaigner suggested. That means measured and carefully weighed conclusions supported by verifiable and accurate facts - not 'final solutions' or 'social cleansing' when talking of housing benefits.

John Rentoul on Ed Miliband

Excellent piece by arch Blairite John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday.

On every single issue, the Prime Minister is on the side of the voters, and Ed Miliband, when he is visible, is on the wrong side, defending the sectional interest of benefit claimants, rich parents, Labour MPs or students. David Cameron and George Osborne ought to be vulnerable. They look too pleased with themselves, too much as if they are enjoying the student politics of it all. But, on the evidence of Miliband's first five weeks, they have nothing to fear.

Well worth reading

Covenants, boarders & the military

Tory plan to axe school fees 'breaks the military covenant' reads the Telegraph headline.

For many years the children of British servicemen have been able to go to private boarding schools through something called the boarding school allowance. This is a fund designed to pay part of the cost of private school fees, which service personnel on fairly meagre salaries would otherwise be unable to afford. The fund provides around £180 million a year for 7,400 military children. £5,621 is allowed per term, with the remainder - usually around £4000 after including uniforms, books & sundry school trips - being paid from regular servicemen's pay. 58% of recipients are officers, 42% soldiers.

It is paid because military units - and hence the families which staff, support and maintain them - are posted to new jobs every two years throughout their military service. More frequently if wars and disputes like Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Afghanistan or Iraq become the norm.

Why is it considered part of the military covenant? Because moving servicemen's children every two years - or even less - from school to school as families rotate around military bases across the world is completely incompatible with good education. Helping to provide a place at a UK based boarding school allows those children the stability and long term educational support that is necessary.

More than that, many military families provide their professionalism and commitment to public service - and let us not forget what a service they provide in places like Helmand, Goose Green or the streets of Belfast - precisely because their children's education is additionally provided. It could hardly be for the pay. That is why the government's move to stop the boarding school allowance for service families is considered a breach of the military covenant. 

As the son of a young army Captain posted to Bielefeld in 1965, who was able to attend just two schools from the age of seven to eighteen, I am living proof the system works.

Boris, cleansing & fairness

I find it unbelievable that Boris Johnson chooses the words 'Balkan' and 'cleansing' to describe capping housing benefits at nearly £21,000 per year. No doubt he has his reasons. And will soon be apologising. Again.

This is not about singling out low income and welfare dependent people - it's just about treating them exactly the same as everyone else explains Alex Morton in an blog for the Spectator. Worth reading.

Gummer on morality

I had been putting off listening to a Start the Week podcast from 10th October and finally got round to listening to it on a walk through Holland Park on Wednesday afternoon.

In it, John - now Lord - Gummer described where morality comes from as a deep understanding of being a 'steward'.

"Nothing in this world is mine. I have been given it. I havn't created it. I may have done things to it and therefore have a duty to look after it. To hand it on in a better condition than I received it. That I should be grateful to God for it. And that at the heart of my morality is ...a drive to 'do' things."

Labour's social cleansing

Ed Miliband asks what an estimated 80,000 housing benefit recipients will do when their rent payments are capped at £20,000 pa in Prime Ministers Questions as if they will be left homeless.

Furthermore, Labour MP Chris Bryant described it as 'social cleansing' in an effort to compare it with Balkan attrocities which ended in the massacre of thousands of ethnic Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. Polly Toynbee - in the same context - has talked of a Tory 'final solution' to welfare.

No Mr Miliband. Capping something at £20,000 means exactly that. Not leaving them with nothing. Or murdering them.

The question you need to be asking is how many of these families are unable to live on £20,000 per year in housing benefit?

Labour spin

Good piece from Tim Montgomery in today's Guardian on Labour's sloppy caricature of Conservatism. He writes, 'The idea that Conservatives want to take Britain back to a world of the Victorian workhouse was espoused by a Labour MP in yesterday's Mirror. Tristram Hunt is supposed to be one of Labour's bright new prospects and a distinguished historian. God help Ed Miliband if he is typical. Hunt abandoned any pretence of intellectual engagement with the coalition's deficit reduction arguments and suggested the Conservatives wanted to take Britain back to a Dickensian horror house. His extraordinary article talked of starving people surviving on gruel, rotten bones and putrid horseflesh.'

Coalition Pensions

I have never understood why somebody - usually women bringing up children, so probably the most socially useful activity possible - should be penalised for perhaps thirty years in their retirement because they were unable to contribute more in National Insurance contributions during their working lifetime.

Reports today suggest the coalition is considering a universal pension at an increased level to the ninety seven-odd pounds per week currently paid to a single pensioner.

Although at an early stage, and unlikely to be introduced until after the next election, this is an initiative we should applaud. Along with a tapering of such pensions for anyone earning more than £44,000 in their retirement. £97 per week is around £5000 annually - pretty modest really.

Sorry Fred 'the shred' Goodwin, you're just going to have to make do with that £703,000.